The UK Government recently announced a public consultation on proposed changes to The Heather and Grass etc Burning (England) Regulations 2021.
This is an important area of policy because England’s peatlands are of huge international importance. 80% of them are currently degraded, with rotational burning (typically on moorland managed for driven grouse shooting) being a contributory factor to that degradation in the uplands. Protecting peat from further damage is crucial to its restoration and recovery.
Here’s the consultation introductory blurb from the Government:
It would be good if as many of you as possible would respond to the public consultation, which closes at 11.59 pm this Sunday (25 May 2025).
It’s relatively straightforward, there are only ten questions that will be relevant to most of you, and Wild Justice has put together an easy-to-follow guide to each question – see here.
Thank you.
Raptor Persecution UK 
Just submitted survey,Wild Justice advice very useful
I responded to this a little while ago, but I found that Defra have (deliberately) made the survey difficult to complete. All the narrative answers have to be written into small, fixed, boxes displaying maybe a dozen words only. They ask for such responses to be limited to 250 words, so they are obviously expecting more than just a dozen.
So why do they unnecessarily limit their form to displaying just 12 words or so?
To view input greater than, say, a dozen words, the user has to pan back and forth, as if the input is one l o n g line of 250 words (of which only about 12 may be seen at any one time)
Normally, in western literature, we write from the top left to the bottom right, and have done so for many centuries. But Defra have decided that input for this important survey should be just right to left… No line feeds, no top to bottom scrolling, no paragraphs. And because the input box is fixed, the user cannot simply extend it to view more than a dozen words or so (well, I couldn’t using my system, and I do not have a different system upon which to test it further:-(
In addition, they do not provide user feedback on the number of words submitted so far: how are users expected to know when/if they are close to this 250 word limit? Or, even, if they have exceeded it?
It is trivial to construct web HTML input boxes which are extendable, and to allow scrolling as well as panning. So, why have Defra decided to not do that, but make input as awkward as possible for the user?
I included a few frustrated, angry, comments among my responses…:-(
Sorted thank you for providing this opportunity.
Sent from my Galaxy
Thank you, Ruth et al – we too in Animal Interfaith Alliance have submitted to the Consultation.
Can I comment on this consultation document if I live in Scotland?
I have certainly commented on Scottish, Welsh and Northern Irish legislation. Quite often, they do not request your home address. In this case they ask for your email OR home address, so I would comment and supply my email address only (just in case;-)
In any case, you might want to visit North Yorkshire, and the state of the landscape effects you just as much as anyone living in, say, Kent!